The Heavy Metal Cowboy - Your source for heavy music concert reviews in the DC/MD/VA Area
Includes Metal, Rock, Hard Rock, some Industrial and Electronic

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Hatebreed/ Shadows Fall/ Dying Fetus @ Empire 2/14/2013

Went to see Hatebreed / Shadows Fall/ Dying Fetus at Empire for Valentine's Day w/ Milla, John, and Kate, and Shabba. There we saw Dorothy and Kate's friends Christine and John. Spend Valentine's Day in the PIT.

This was a packed show, a ton of people were there (I don't think it sold out, but it was pretty close), invoking an almost Amon Amarth level of humidity at one point. This is one of those bands that I enjoy the music, but not really the crowd it brings. You see a different type of pit and mentality for a Hardcore show than you do for a death metal show, in general. It seems to me that the hardcore or metalcore audiences are a bit less considerate, one could say.

CDs were $10 for all bands, I believe ($20 for autographed new one from Hatebreed). I got Hatebreed's new one. They had a bunch of Hatebreed shirts , but nothing amazing IMO. Shadows Fall had kinda lame shirt designs, pint glasses, stickers, patches, CDs, I think a flag, and a couple of items spilling off of their small merch table. Dying Fetus had CDs and shirts at least.

The level of rowdyness was getting a bit annoying, but hey you're going to a Hatebreed show on Valentine's day with a lot of (presumably) single dudes. There is going to be a large degree of frustrated energy in that pit. But that combined with the karate/hardcore kids was irritating. There was a head scratch inducing chubby guy in a red shirt, bandana, ball cap, and beard that I swore was doing part of the Pee Wee Herman Tequila dance in the middle of a slow pit at one point. People would bounce into him, he would re adjust and continue on doing it. So bizarre. There was a kid in a white shirt windmilling and jumping around like a goddamn orangutan. ARGH. With Hatebreed's surprisingly positive lyrics for their aggressive sounding music you'd think people would be less... stupid in the pit.

But what took the cake was the like 2 or 3 year old toddler with huge headphones on , on her mother's shoulders. On the floor. During the bands. First off, we see her leopard skin dress and bk light up sneakers lurk around when we came in and I announce she is the youngest person I've seen at a metal show (beating the like 7 year old at Slayer with the KISS shirt and her huge bearded biker daddy). At one point, we feel her and see her passing thru us... and then a minute later her mother frantically searching for her with a horrified look on her face. Mother of the year. But wait, there's more- during Shadows Fall, the mother carried her daughter on her shoulders across the floor, to the left speaker set (pretty damn close), to the edge of the pit (smart.), and then to pretty much up against the stage, and Brian Fair (singer) was flabbergasted. He took a pic with her (check the bookface page) and commented about starting her out right \m/ Again, I don't know all the details, but to me it seemed that there was some questionable parenting in this case.

Dying Fetus sounded pretty good, nice and heavy, I def was pleased. They had pretty decent pits for most of the songs, and got people pretty amped. Their riffs sounded good, vocals were indecipherable. Drums sounded nice and heavy. When they left the stage, a ton of people left the floor. Shadows Fall would be less crowded than Dying Fetus and Hatebreed.

So we positioned ourselves in the corner of the floor to watch Shadows Fall. They started off sounding a bit rough, but by the third song I think they evened out and the sound mix improved. There was something missing during their set, I don't know what it was exactly, but the crowd seemed less...appreciative of Shadows Fall's more complex brand of metal (compared to nearly guitar solo less Hatebreed, and more groove oriented Dying Fetus). At least that's the story I am going with. Brian's dreads were still looking like they were going to knock someone out. They had a replacement guitarist from... I don't know... cause their regular one was filling in for Anthrax. They still sounded very good. I think they actually played nearly the same set as supporting Killswitch in December.

Now, as Hatebreed was to come on, the floor filled up. We got ready to escape the floor if needed. Well I did at least. Thankfully we didn't have to, but people were still plenty rowdy. I was expecting a bit more, but I think people were a bit tired by the time Hatebreed came on. They sounded great, as the simple Hatebreed elements are the shouting vox, the simple guitar riffs and drops with the ever present thundering drums. The vocals actually were a lot clearer than I expected. I dunno how that happened.

They played a number of songs I've not heard live, along with a few from their new album. A pretty good mix. They played a short headline set (1 hr), but I think that was fine, as the high energy from Hatebreed is very tiring, especially for people actually in the pit X_X. Overall it was a great show (especially attendance wise) for Empire, hope they can get more shows that draw people (to um make Empire more successful, and have this heavy music scene keep going strong).

I didn't get a lot of great shots because of my positioning and the number of people at the show. Get a good shot lined up, someone's arms or head gets in the way, or get bumped into. WHATEVER.